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The Well at the World's End
The Well at the World's End was among the very first of its kind — it is an epic romance of duplicity, machination, passion, and wizardry, and is, in short, a vast odyssey into the weird. It is a beautifully rich fantasy, a vibrant fairy tale without fairies. It is the most entrancing of William Morris's late romances — part futuristic fantasy novel, part old-fashioned fairy tale. Morris writes his magic love story with a sense of color and pattern, and the sheer imaginative fervor of one of the most brilliant decorative artists that has ever lived.
562 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published March 2, 1896
About the author
William Morris
1,352 books423 followersWilliam Morris was an English architect, furniture and textile designer, artist, writer, socialist and Marxist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement. Morris wrote and published poetry, fiction, and translations of ancient and medieval texts throughout his life. His best-known works include The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems (1858), The Earthly Paradise (1868–1870), A Dream of John Ball and the utopian News from Nowhere. He was an important figure in the emergence of socialism in Britain, founding the Socialist League in 1884, but breaking with the movement over goals and methods by the end of that decade. He devoted much of the rest of his life to the Kelmscott Press, which he founded in 1891. The 1896 Kelmscott edition of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer is considered a masterpiece of book design.
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July 12, 2016
First published in 1896, and now in the public domain, The Well at World's End by William Morris has inspired countless great fantasy authors. J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were students at Oxford when they became devotees of Morris's work, to name just two. I first read this book in college back in the dark ages, when Ballantine released it as a two-volume set.
This fairly unknown literary treasure is now available free, as a download for your Kindle or other reading device. I got my Kindle version through the Gutenberg Project on Google--and it has reminded me of what my true roots as a reader of fantasy are. Give me the beautiful prose, the side-quests to nowhere, and wrap them in an illusion of magic, and I'm yours forever.
First, The Blurb:
The rich, interwoven tapestry of William Morris's four volume epic, "The Well at the World's End", is brought together in a handsome edition featuring the tale of Ralph of Upmeads. Literally and figuratively, this story is the wellspring that gave rise to both C.S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia", and J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings". Many elements of the story will be familiar to those who love these and other modern narratives of fantasy and adventure, set in a mythical world.
Ralph of Upmeads is the fourth and youngest son of the king of a small monarchy, and the only one forbidden of his elder brothers from going in search of his fortune. He runs away, but not before his godmother gives him a necklace with a bead on it, which unerringly directs his destiny to seek out the legendary and titular well at the end of the earth. Along the way, he encounters friends and foes in an ever-changing landscape of rolling hills and barren wood, towering mountains and meandering rivers. Through them all pass roads down which many heroes since have sojourned; united in fellowship, or alone on solitary quests.
Great and splendorous cities await, and in between, thriving towns, tiny villages, and protective farms at the edge of vast wildernesses. The further our intrepid wayfarer gets from home, the more he misses the simple pleasures of his hearth, table and bed. Many have followed in his footsteps since, both character and reader alike.
Its language is that of another age, but its archetypical settings and denizens are the timeless stuff of once and future legend.
My Review:
Morris wrote beautifully crafted poems, and the prose in this narrative is both medieval and sumptuous. He was born in 1834 and died in 1896. He was an important figure in the emergence of socialism in Britain, founding the Socialist League in 1884, but breaking with that organization over goals and methods by the end of the decade. Famous as a designer of textiles and wallpaper prints that made the Arts and Crafts style famous, Morris devoted much of the rest of his life to the Kelmscott Press, which he founded in 1891. Kelmscott was devoted to the publishing of limited-edition,illuminated-style print books. The 1896 Kelmscott edition of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer is considered a masterpiece of book design.
The Well at World's End is a real departure for the literature of the Victorian era, in that the morality is indicative of the free-thinking bohemian lifestyle of the famous and infamous artists of the day. William Morris was a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and was a man who enjoyed an unconventional lifestyle in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, all of them celebrating musical, artistic, and literary pursuits.
Using language with elements of the medieval tales written by Chaucer and Chrétien de Troyes, who were his models, Morris tells the story of Ralph of Upmeads, the fourth and youngest son of a minor king. The king is wise and his kingdom prosperous, but nevertheless his four sons are not content. The three older brothers set out, with their father’s blessing. Ralph is still young, and his father wishes him to remain at his side.
Not happy with his lot, Ralph departs without his father’s blessing. He yearns to find knightly adventure and is encouraged by a lady, Dame Katharine, to seek the Well at the World's End, a magic well which will confer a near-immortality and strengthened destiny on those who drink from it. The Dame is childless, and sees Ralph as a son; she gives him a necklace of blue and green stones with a small box of gold tied on to it, telling him to let no man take it from him, as it will be his salvation. She also gives him money for his journey.
The well lies at the edge of the sea beyond a wall of mountains called "The Wall of the World" by those on the near side of them but "The Wall of Strife" by the more peaceful and egalitarian people who live on the seaward side.
Ralph meets a mysterious Lady of the Dry Tree, the Lady of Abundance who has drunk from the well, and they become lovers. Together and separately, they face many foes and dangers including brigands, slave traders, unscrupulous rulers and treacherous fellow travelers. The lady is murdered, leaving Ralph bereft. Later, Ralph meets another lady, Ursula, and with her help and the aid of the Sage of Sweveham, an ancient hermit who has also drunk of the well, Ralph eventually attains the Well, after many more adventures.
Because the main character, Ralph, and a nameless lady become lovers with no thought of marriage, the novel was not well known in its time, until twenty years after Morris's death when it was discovered by free-thinking university students, to the dismay of their strait-laced parents.
The underlying story is strong, with many twists and turns. The relationship between the Ralph and the Lady of Abundance is well portrayed, as is the jealousy of her former lover, the death of her husband, and the way she is either loved or feared by everyone around her driving the plot forward. She is a woman of mystery, alternately cruel and kind, one minute the Lady of the Dry Tree, and the next, the Lady of Abundance.
Ralph's story really begins after her death and the twists and turns of fate and magic are compelling. The characters Ursula and the Sage of Sweveham are both deep and well-drawn.
I freely confess, in the same way that the works of William Shakespeare are hard for a modern reader to translate, the language of William Morris’s work is difficult to follow. A quote will show you what I mean: "But Ralph gave forth a great wail of woe, and ran forward and knelt by the Lady, who lay all huddled up face down upon the grass, and he lifted her up and laid her gently on her back. The blood was flowing fast from a great wound in her breast, and he tore off a piece of his shirt to staunch it, but she without knowledge of him breathed forth her last breath ere he could touch the hurt, and he still knelt by her, staring on her as if he knew not what was toward."
When you read it aloud, it rolls off the tongue with beauty and grace, and is somehow easier to understand. The hard-core devotee of true fantasy literature will not be intimidated by the archaic prose. There is a wealth of tales within tales in this volume, all of which come together in the end. And remember, the book costs nothing!
This fairly unknown literary treasure is now available free, as a download for your Kindle or other reading device. I got my Kindle version through the Gutenberg Project on Google--and it has reminded me of what my true roots as a reader of fantasy are. Give me the beautiful prose, the side-quests to nowhere, and wrap them in an illusion of magic, and I'm yours forever.
First, The Blurb:
The rich, interwoven tapestry of William Morris's four volume epic, "The Well at the World's End", is brought together in a handsome edition featuring the tale of Ralph of Upmeads. Literally and figuratively, this story is the wellspring that gave rise to both C.S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia", and J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings". Many elements of the story will be familiar to those who love these and other modern narratives of fantasy and adventure, set in a mythical world.
Ralph of Upmeads is the fourth and youngest son of the king of a small monarchy, and the only one forbidden of his elder brothers from going in search of his fortune. He runs away, but not before his godmother gives him a necklace with a bead on it, which unerringly directs his destiny to seek out the legendary and titular well at the end of the earth. Along the way, he encounters friends and foes in an ever-changing landscape of rolling hills and barren wood, towering mountains and meandering rivers. Through them all pass roads down which many heroes since have sojourned; united in fellowship, or alone on solitary quests.
Great and splendorous cities await, and in between, thriving towns, tiny villages, and protective farms at the edge of vast wildernesses. The further our intrepid wayfarer gets from home, the more he misses the simple pleasures of his hearth, table and bed. Many have followed in his footsteps since, both character and reader alike.
Its language is that of another age, but its archetypical settings and denizens are the timeless stuff of once and future legend.
My Review:
Morris wrote beautifully crafted poems, and the prose in this narrative is both medieval and sumptuous. He was born in 1834 and died in 1896. He was an important figure in the emergence of socialism in Britain, founding the Socialist League in 1884, but breaking with that organization over goals and methods by the end of the decade. Famous as a designer of textiles and wallpaper prints that made the Arts and Crafts style famous, Morris devoted much of the rest of his life to the Kelmscott Press, which he founded in 1891. Kelmscott was devoted to the publishing of limited-edition,illuminated-style print books. The 1896 Kelmscott edition of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer is considered a masterpiece of book design.
The Well at World's End is a real departure for the literature of the Victorian era, in that the morality is indicative of the free-thinking bohemian lifestyle of the famous and infamous artists of the day. William Morris was a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and was a man who enjoyed an unconventional lifestyle in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, all of them celebrating musical, artistic, and literary pursuits.
Using language with elements of the medieval tales written by Chaucer and Chrétien de Troyes, who were his models, Morris tells the story of Ralph of Upmeads, the fourth and youngest son of a minor king. The king is wise and his kingdom prosperous, but nevertheless his four sons are not content. The three older brothers set out, with their father’s blessing. Ralph is still young, and his father wishes him to remain at his side.
Not happy with his lot, Ralph departs without his father’s blessing. He yearns to find knightly adventure and is encouraged by a lady, Dame Katharine, to seek the Well at the World's End, a magic well which will confer a near-immortality and strengthened destiny on those who drink from it. The Dame is childless, and sees Ralph as a son; she gives him a necklace of blue and green stones with a small box of gold tied on to it, telling him to let no man take it from him, as it will be his salvation. She also gives him money for his journey.
The well lies at the edge of the sea beyond a wall of mountains called "The Wall of the World" by those on the near side of them but "The Wall of Strife" by the more peaceful and egalitarian people who live on the seaward side.
Ralph meets a mysterious Lady of the Dry Tree, the Lady of Abundance who has drunk from the well, and they become lovers. Together and separately, they face many foes and dangers including brigands, slave traders, unscrupulous rulers and treacherous fellow travelers. The lady is murdered, leaving Ralph bereft. Later, Ralph meets another lady, Ursula, and with her help and the aid of the Sage of Sweveham, an ancient hermit who has also drunk of the well, Ralph eventually attains the Well, after many more adventures.
Because the main character, Ralph, and a nameless lady become lovers with no thought of marriage, the novel was not well known in its time, until twenty years after Morris's death when it was discovered by free-thinking university students, to the dismay of their strait-laced parents.
The underlying story is strong, with many twists and turns. The relationship between the Ralph and the Lady of Abundance is well portrayed, as is the jealousy of her former lover, the death of her husband, and the way she is either loved or feared by everyone around her driving the plot forward. She is a woman of mystery, alternately cruel and kind, one minute the Lady of the Dry Tree, and the next, the Lady of Abundance.
Ralph's story really begins after her death and the twists and turns of fate and magic are compelling. The characters Ursula and the Sage of Sweveham are both deep and well-drawn.
I freely confess, in the same way that the works of William Shakespeare are hard for a modern reader to translate, the language of William Morris’s work is difficult to follow. A quote will show you what I mean: "But Ralph gave forth a great wail of woe, and ran forward and knelt by the Lady, who lay all huddled up face down upon the grass, and he lifted her up and laid her gently on her back. The blood was flowing fast from a great wound in her breast, and he tore off a piece of his shirt to staunch it, but she without knowledge of him breathed forth her last breath ere he could touch the hurt, and he still knelt by her, staring on her as if he knew not what was toward."
When you read it aloud, it rolls off the tongue with beauty and grace, and is somehow easier to understand. The hard-core devotee of true fantasy literature will not be intimidated by the archaic prose. There is a wealth of tales within tales in this volume, all of which come together in the end. And remember, the book costs nothing!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 1, 2012
A classic example of pre-Tolkien fantasy, this book was an incredible slog, in both good and bad ways. On the one hand, incredibly loooong, complex and full of too many side stories and obscure references. On the other, incredibly familiar--I kept meeting places, characters, themes and scenarios that have been reborn many times into modern fantasy because they are so powerful, interesting, useful, or just plain fun. I also enjoyed the archaic language, even though it made the story occasionally hard to follow.
I'd have a hard time recommending the book, just because you need so many disclaimers (really long, really rambling, difficult language, archaic, etc). But overall, I'm glad I read it--a fun example of storytelling, world-building and the origins of the fantasy genre.
I'd have a hard time recommending the book, just because you need so many disclaimers (really long, really rambling, difficult language, archaic, etc). But overall, I'm glad I read it--a fun example of storytelling, world-building and the origins of the fantasy genre.
March 10, 2024
A classic, not well-beloved given its low number of Goodreads ratings compared to others, written in an archaic medieval style, full of thee/thou/thines and sooth/forsooths and wots and such, by a 19th century Scottish poet. It's often cited as an influence on J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, although I doubted this at first, thinking it possibly overblown from a record that the two had simply discussed their enjoyment of the book together. I've seen it referred to as "the first fantasy novel" and I do not support such a statement, particularly given its seeming lack of fantasy elements (the one that exists is extremely subtle); I can better get behind calling it "the prototype of the generic medieval setting often seen in fantasy."
It wasn't a tough read, but it did require an active, considered choice to continue at some point. The language is one layer of density, with its elongated and roundabout way of producing most statements, often seeming to say the opposite of what is meant. The lack of any modern fiction sensibility is another. I do not recommend this book to anyone, lest it be in the furtherance of some scholarly pursuit. I learned of it years ago when I developed an interest in the roots of fantasy fiction. I might have read it earlier, but the only print copy at my library was a strange format: a double-wide folio that was nothing other than a .txt document printed out, with all the visual reading appeal that entails. I put it aside, but the mild desire to still read it stuck with me over the years and I finally made it happen.
I moderately enjoyed it, despite its length, but I'm not sure why. It's definitely not the characters; Ralph of Upmeads is exactly as interesting as his name, as is every other character. Ralph has beauty and politeness, but he has little agency in his journey; he's led by the nose every step of the way to the Well. It's definitely not the plot; there isn't much of one to speak of, other than "Ralph runs away from home, is led to the Well at the World's End, drinks from it, then goes home again." There are no events along the way that are worth speaking of. What little action exists is subdued and quickly runs its course, with zero tension. The vast majority of the book's content is other people telling Ralph about the history of a place or person, then on Ralph's way back home telling him what happened in each location while he was away. The medieval language is pleasant but not captivating like elevated modern prose can be. Maybe it's simply the sum effect: a gently pleasing travel account with subtle, slight character development and language and description that creates an almost dream-like setting. With characters falling over weeping over each other's goodness.
Only towards the end could I see the parallels between this book and Tolkien's work: it has pre-echoes in its "There and Back Again" structure, the manner in which multiple nations rally behind a charismatic leader who becomes king of all, and the ending has a strong "Scouring of the Shire" feel to it. But it's far better to re-read Lord of the Rings if that's the experience you want.
I don't regret reading it at all, but again, I don't recommend the book to anyone except as a curiosity, and in that only a small sample is necessary. The book is in the public domain and available as a free e-book in many places.
It wasn't a tough read, but it did require an active, considered choice to continue at some point. The language is one layer of density, with its elongated and roundabout way of producing most statements, often seeming to say the opposite of what is meant. The lack of any modern fiction sensibility is another. I do not recommend this book to anyone, lest it be in the furtherance of some scholarly pursuit. I learned of it years ago when I developed an interest in the roots of fantasy fiction. I might have read it earlier, but the only print copy at my library was a strange format: a double-wide folio that was nothing other than a .txt document printed out, with all the visual reading appeal that entails. I put it aside, but the mild desire to still read it stuck with me over the years and I finally made it happen.
I moderately enjoyed it, despite its length, but I'm not sure why. It's definitely not the characters; Ralph of Upmeads is exactly as interesting as his name, as is every other character. Ralph has beauty and politeness, but he has little agency in his journey; he's led by the nose every step of the way to the Well. It's definitely not the plot; there isn't much of one to speak of, other than "Ralph runs away from home, is led to the Well at the World's End, drinks from it, then goes home again." There are no events along the way that are worth speaking of. What little action exists is subdued and quickly runs its course, with zero tension. The vast majority of the book's content is other people telling Ralph about the history of a place or person, then on Ralph's way back home telling him what happened in each location while he was away. The medieval language is pleasant but not captivating like elevated modern prose can be. Maybe it's simply the sum effect: a gently pleasing travel account with subtle, slight character development and language and description that creates an almost dream-like setting. With characters falling over weeping over each other's goodness.
Only towards the end could I see the parallels between this book and Tolkien's work: it has pre-echoes in its "There and Back Again" structure, the manner in which multiple nations rally behind a charismatic leader who becomes king of all, and the ending has a strong "Scouring of the Shire" feel to it. But it's far better to re-read Lord of the Rings if that's the experience you want.
I don't regret reading it at all, but again, I don't recommend the book to anyone except as a curiosity, and in that only a small sample is necessary. The book is in the public domain and available as a free e-book in many places.
October 31, 2014
Read this--tried to read this because it has been cited as influencing both C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasies a generation later. If this was what they were forced to read, no wonder they wrote their own.
The story, a typical youngest son questing novel, isn't so bad but the storytelling is terrible. Morris tries to recreate medieval language, but ends with something stilted and unreadable.
Don't waste your time. Disappointing.
The story, a typical youngest son questing novel, isn't so bad but the storytelling is terrible. Morris tries to recreate medieval language, but ends with something stilted and unreadable.
Don't waste your time. Disappointing.
Read
March 17, 2024repeat everything I said about Wood Beyond the World, but substitute Tolkien for C.S. Lewis—it is really amazing how you can go decades of your life thinking that a guy makes up the most well-beloved epic fantasy of all time out of whole cloth + Beowulf + Sigurd and discover that in point of fact he has been very obviously thinking about this book every day—people will point out things like a character being named "Gandolf" but the things that jump out at me are 1) the part when our hero Ralph and his gf traverse the big scary mountains, arrive in a nice little farming country where every single person there is like "oh... no... we don't do quests here. we're too nice, and good at farming. little small ordinary people are NPCs, to us. have fun tho" and 2) the fact that our hero Ralph obtains the quest object, a magical thing whose powers are extremely undefined, and takes its power unto himself, and immediately becomes Better and Stronger in some indefinable way and everyone immediately says "wow!! this man is strong, and beautiful. in my onion he should be king of me and everything else also" and this works out completely fine. I mean you can see Tolkien lying in his hospital bed in WWI drawing his philology trees and thinking to himself "no..... no........ I need to respond to the wrongness of both of these, directly."
all of this said. the main takeaway, for me, is how conservative Tolkien and Lewis appear once you read this novel; you understand of course on some level that they are conservative, in the little-c sense (mostly), you are not particularly surprised to hear that after Vatican II (2 Fast 2 Curia) my man continued to say his bits at Mass in Latin very loudly, or to read the bit at the end of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when Lewis is like "oh yeah they were great kings... they stopped the government interfering with people, mostly". but the sort of spectrum of political options available to high fantasy becomes much clearer when, well, nearly every scene in the back half of this book features women putting on armor and fighting beside the men—in the world of the book it's notable, but not hugely notable, in a way that is quite different from Lewis' "war is ugly when women fight"—not to mention, of course, the presence of extramarital sex.
I've generally been of the party that even the most leftist high fantasy is entering into a conversation with nationalism, cultural conservativism, and colonialism, going off of Geraldine Heng's work in Empire of Magic, which I still think is essentially true, but this does paint a very thoughtful sort of yugioh_crossroads.meme picture of the ways that conservativism really did not have to be baked into high fantasy as a whole. that said, you can see why it was, on account of how William Morris does not—god bless—know what the fuck pacing is. you ever read a hero's journey by a guy who genuinely, in his heart, doesn't know about the hero's journey? wild
all of this said. the main takeaway, for me, is how conservative Tolkien and Lewis appear once you read this novel; you understand of course on some level that they are conservative, in the little-c sense (mostly), you are not particularly surprised to hear that after Vatican II (2 Fast 2 Curia) my man continued to say his bits at Mass in Latin very loudly, or to read the bit at the end of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when Lewis is like "oh yeah they were great kings... they stopped the government interfering with people, mostly". but the sort of spectrum of political options available to high fantasy becomes much clearer when, well, nearly every scene in the back half of this book features women putting on armor and fighting beside the men—in the world of the book it's notable, but not hugely notable, in a way that is quite different from Lewis' "war is ugly when women fight"—not to mention, of course, the presence of extramarital sex.
I've generally been of the party that even the most leftist high fantasy is entering into a conversation with nationalism, cultural conservativism, and colonialism, going off of Geraldine Heng's work in Empire of Magic, which I still think is essentially true, but this does paint a very thoughtful sort of yugioh_crossroads.meme picture of the ways that conservativism really did not have to be baked into high fantasy as a whole. that said, you can see why it was, on account of how William Morris does not—god bless—know what the fuck pacing is. you ever read a hero's journey by a guy who genuinely, in his heart, doesn't know about the hero's journey? wild
October 6, 2016
4.5 Stars! It was an excellent adventure, full of knights, lovely ladies, mystical adventures, battles and a quest. You can't get much better than that. I'm surprised that it's not more well-known.
October 21, 2020
The Well at the World’s End is among the most famous Victorian fantasy novels written by William Morris. The author engaged medieval elements and, I daresay, language to create a unique and quite well settled secondary world, well defined and with its topography explained in detail. In order to evoke the aura of the distant past, Morris broaches the language utilisation which is his literary landmark (and some critics say – his bane). Yet, I adore the archaic second person pronouns (thee, thou, thy, thine, and ye) as well as myriad more terms such as: ganrgel, befalleth, bewrayed, behoof etc. The story tells about the heroism, decency and nobility of the young Prince Ralph, the youngest offspring of the High King Peter of the land named Upmeads. On this very beginning, the reader is instantly encountered with an inkling that the entire book will burst with the onomastic elements, which is quite expected in William’s books. The young Prince is revolted of being excluded of all the adventures and deeds that his elder brothers were involved in, and he decided one day to run away from home in sooth for adventure. Then, the story begins to unravel quite slowly and in some parts becomes quite entangled, blurry and clumsily carried. Ralph came across the Wood Perilous and thither encountered with ruffians which held a damsel as their captive. The young knight rescued the woman, and she revealed to him that her name is Lady of Abundance, and that he ought to find the well at the world’s end and to drink from it, for “it quenches the sorrow and clears the eyes.” And “the dead may not drink of the well, yet the living may, even if they are old; and that blessed water giveth them new might and changeth their blood and they are as young folk for a long while again after they have drunken.” Hence, the young Ralph decided to traverse all the way throughout many cities and hamlets to reach the Well and drink from it. Along his itinerary, he encountered many strange and less strange people and passed many landscapes, until he reached the city of Utterboll where the Dark Lord held Lady of Abundance’s sister Ursula as a prisoner. With Ralph’s help, Ursula escaped her imprisonment and they both went in sooth for the Sage of Swevenham who will teach them how to avoid perils and reach the Well at the World’s end safe and sound. The Sage even accompanied them to the immense mountain chain which is their first impediment. Along the way to the very Well, they coped with many more obstacles and peculiarities, and a romance occurred between them as well. The Well I expected to be somewhat mysterious, marvellous and illusive, yet it is quite real and quite simple in its simplicity, as it often happens with many great and important matter. After they took a draught from the spring, I expected this novel to come to its end, yet Morris quite extended the occurrences after the aim was achieved. Their last challenge is a battle against men from the Burg of the Four Friths which were the foes of the Ralph’s home town Upmeads. Ralph leads a force in excess of a thousand men against the enemy and defeats them. That cleared the Ralph’s way to return to his Upmeads safely with his beloved Ursula to his mother and father, and to become new King of Upmeads and Ursula his Queen.
Since “The Well at the World’s End” was immense Tolkien’s inspiration, I couldn’t resist not to “chase” and “seek” for the resemblances from this book similar to Tolkien’s work. Thus, the very title quite resembles of the Tolkien’s drawing entitled “End of the World” which is from his changeful, dark and reflective period upon the threshold of adulthood. Another coincidence is Tolkien’s drawing “The Wood at the World’s End” – and early dust-jacket cover for the nascenting “The Hobbit”. Another similarities are the names of the horses – in William’s novel is Silverfax, in Tolkien’s – Shadowfax. Then, the name Gandolf appears as well, and the existence of the obscure Dark Lord which enslaves and tortures the people. Tolkien’s Galadriel is mere reflection of Lady of Abundance and the Sage of Swevenham owns much of the Tolkien’s Gandalf qualities – he accompanied the two adventurers throughout the perilous parts and taught them well how to avoid the future ones, as well as Gandalf succoured the dwarfs and Bilbo on their way to the Lonely Mountain.
All in all, this book is sheer gem of the Victorian fantasy genre and albeit is quite extended for my taste, I’ve enjoyed much in its content and the Morris’s skilful and unique literary style.
Since “The Well at the World’s End” was immense Tolkien’s inspiration, I couldn’t resist not to “chase” and “seek” for the resemblances from this book similar to Tolkien’s work. Thus, the very title quite resembles of the Tolkien’s drawing entitled “End of the World” which is from his changeful, dark and reflective period upon the threshold of adulthood. Another coincidence is Tolkien’s drawing “The Wood at the World’s End” – and early dust-jacket cover for the nascenting “The Hobbit”. Another similarities are the names of the horses – in William’s novel is Silverfax, in Tolkien’s – Shadowfax. Then, the name Gandolf appears as well, and the existence of the obscure Dark Lord which enslaves and tortures the people. Tolkien’s Galadriel is mere reflection of Lady of Abundance and the Sage of Swevenham owns much of the Tolkien’s Gandalf qualities – he accompanied the two adventurers throughout the perilous parts and taught them well how to avoid the future ones, as well as Gandalf succoured the dwarfs and Bilbo on their way to the Lonely Mountain.
All in all, this book is sheer gem of the Victorian fantasy genre and albeit is quite extended for my taste, I’ve enjoyed much in its content and the Morris’s skilful and unique literary style.
April 27, 2011
I can't believe I waited this long to read this classic fantasy novel. When I began, and got into it well, I could scarcely put it down.
Written in an old-English style that is a pleasure to some and a hindrance to others (very much a pleasure to me), The Well at the World's End is a romantic fantasy of a quest for the marriage of youth and wisdom, or, in sooth, true eternal life. Not a life that does not end, for though long-lasting indeed, yet death shall at last come as a comfort to the man or woman who has truly been a "friend of the well." No, Eternal Life is interpreted, I think, more as "god's life," for is not Eternal a name of the All?
Not overly religious at all, and indeed giving decent heed to goodwill from any source, the novel is, nonetheless, a primer of sorts on how a true hero and heroine behave and treat both their betters and lessers. A quiet form of mysticism forms a basis of the quest to go beyond the "Wall of the World," pass by the tokens, and drink the drought of eternal wisdom and youth. Thence return to the world to use such new-found youth, vigor and wisdom to better the world in some degree. If a story such as this be in the readers heart, he or she shall hearken well to this telling, and gain both comfort and hope that at least some part of the story can be fashioned for use in our own lives.
I can highly recommend this book to those who search for such in their lives.
Written in an old-English style that is a pleasure to some and a hindrance to others (very much a pleasure to me), The Well at the World's End is a romantic fantasy of a quest for the marriage of youth and wisdom, or, in sooth, true eternal life. Not a life that does not end, for though long-lasting indeed, yet death shall at last come as a comfort to the man or woman who has truly been a "friend of the well." No, Eternal Life is interpreted, I think, more as "god's life," for is not Eternal a name of the All?
Not overly religious at all, and indeed giving decent heed to goodwill from any source, the novel is, nonetheless, a primer of sorts on how a true hero and heroine behave and treat both their betters and lessers. A quiet form of mysticism forms a basis of the quest to go beyond the "Wall of the World," pass by the tokens, and drink the drought of eternal wisdom and youth. Thence return to the world to use such new-found youth, vigor and wisdom to better the world in some degree. If a story such as this be in the readers heart, he or she shall hearken well to this telling, and gain both comfort and hope that at least some part of the story can be fashioned for use in our own lives.
I can highly recommend this book to those who search for such in their lives.
May 8, 2012
This apparently is a pioneering book, having influenced both Tolkien and Lewis; for that reason, it may be of interest to their fans (like me) to find such things as stone tables, an evil king named Gandolf (sic), a great journey to the world's end, and trouble at home when the hero returns. The language, which is written in Middle English (even though it was published only a hundred or so years ago), may irritate some readers, but I myself wasn't too troubled by it. What bothered me about this book was its absolute lack of danger and suspense. Even though the story is supposed to be high adventure, I was never drawn into the events of the quest, not did I feel very present in Morris's world because he did a poor job of describing it. So although this may have been influential to the best writers of fantasy, it was so surpassed by them that it was not really worth the read (nor the 562 pages it took to tell the tale).
This book, by the way, is available for a free download at the Kindle store.
This book, by the way, is available for a free download at the Kindle store.
July 3, 2013
Ignore reviews that say this masterpiece, perhaps the first true fantasy novel, is "needlessly written" in an "Old English" style. There are several archaic words that Morris uses repeatedly and he has a preference for words not derived from latin. Anyone can survive a mere handful of colorful archaisms. If one dislikes anachronistic dialogue (as when soldiers with bows are commanded to "fire," this is the antidote. Tolkien and Lewis, on the night they met, shared their love of this magical book. The landscape may well remind you of Frodo and Sam's crawl towards Mordor, and it has all--and more--of the fellowship and sweetness of the LOR master. This is a love story, a bildungsroman, and a tour of a complex, multifaceted world that demonstrates Morris's flair for great storytelling, his mature understanding of diverse peoples at different stages of social development and his great love of human fellowship. If there is a fountain of youth, its waters trickle through the human heart and the pages this masterpiece. For Tolkien buffs this is THE must-read.
April 1, 2014
One of the great fantasy classics, written in 1896, that inspired C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkein, E.R. Eddison, and many others.
November 26, 2017
The Well at the World's End
I'm very interested in fantasy literature, and enjoy reading it very much. A few months ago I'd read The King of Elfland's Daughter, and now I've just read an even older book by William Morris. It was first published in 1896 and is considered to be one of the first modern fantasy works in English.
I found that the book was quite misogynistic - is this something that I should have expected given the timeline of its publication? The important characters all seem to be men, and the women are just there, doing what women are "supposed to do"? I felt a little irritated with this, but I don't know enough about the times in the nineteenth century, so I'll let this pass. But I'll go ahead and say that this was the most major thing I felt about the book in the first one hundred and fifty pages.
The writing is good! Plot development is nice, although a lot of details are encapsulated and even hidden from the reader. When reading a fantasy book, I like to be in the thick of things, knowing of the various nuances happening, but this book focuses on only person's quest for the most part, and doesn't have vivid descriptions of nice scenes. Again, I am assuming that this is how books were back then.
So many of the usual devices that you find in fantasy literature are present in most of the books you will read. The central object in question in this book, the well at the world's end, is a well whose waters provide a sort of immortality. The theme of immortality has been dealt with so many times in fantasy literature; and this is quite interesting. It is one of humankind's primary goals to live forever. (If you're interested in a more realistic treatment of this idea, read The Denial of Death - it's fantastic and I should re-read it soon) So yes, coming back to this book, Ralph of Upmeads wishes to go a-questing and after hearing of it from many people, decides that his quest will be to drink from the well at the world's end. What I liked about this was that he chose it just out of spirit of adventure (partially, at least - if I told you why exactly he does it, it would be a spoiler).
The geographical area covered in this book is tiny. Really tiny. Major towns are only thirty miles apart and can be traveled between on horseback in a day or so. This is something I've noticed quite often in fantasy books - the distances are automatically constrained by the fact that horseback is the primary mode of transport.
There are other things that are similar in other fantasy books - the presence of a sage who is wise and acts as a guide. Haven't we seen so many of these? There's another similarity with _The Lord of the Rings_, but I think I will not write it here because it'll be a spoiler, again?
I am not criticising the book because of these things, nor am I criticising the genre of fantasy. Some things need to stay the same so that readers are comfortable looking at other things changing. I, for one, enjoy horses and swords and knights. Attempting to make sense of immortality is a good thing; and I enjoy looking at how various authors think about it.
This book does not have much in terms of worldbuilding. The setting seems to be in Britain near the coast, and the "world's end" where the well is at is just the sea. That's fine. I enjoyed reading the adventures, and the interplay of the characters was nice. There was a deliberate placing of people in places and Morris had good control over the plot, although it did get a little draggy towards the end.
I was coming into this book slightly expecting the characters to fall flat in terms of depth and complexity. And after reading the first hundred or so pages, I felt like this was going to be the case. However, it wasn't to be - the characters were complex, there is romance, kingship, lordship, thralldom and more in this book. They are all treated well, and looked at from various angles. Except the romance, perhaps. Haha.
Characters are quite decisive, and we don't get to see too much of any soul-searching happening. Truly, it is a happening world and it seems like someone told everyone : "get down and do your job". There isn't too much scheming or soliloquiy. I would have liked that.
But overall, I enjoyed the book and even finished it as it ran past five hundred pages. It was instructive to read and see how William Morris inspired an entire generation, or cohort, of writers to adopt certain aspects and mannerisms in their own fantasy writing. For a trailblazer (arguably), this is a very good book and holds its own.
I'm very interested in fantasy literature, and enjoy reading it very much. A few months ago I'd read The King of Elfland's Daughter, and now I've just read an even older book by William Morris. It was first published in 1896 and is considered to be one of the first modern fantasy works in English.
I found that the book was quite misogynistic - is this something that I should have expected given the timeline of its publication? The important characters all seem to be men, and the women are just there, doing what women are "supposed to do"? I felt a little irritated with this, but I don't know enough about the times in the nineteenth century, so I'll let this pass. But I'll go ahead and say that this was the most major thing I felt about the book in the first one hundred and fifty pages.
The writing is good! Plot development is nice, although a lot of details are encapsulated and even hidden from the reader. When reading a fantasy book, I like to be in the thick of things, knowing of the various nuances happening, but this book focuses on only person's quest for the most part, and doesn't have vivid descriptions of nice scenes. Again, I am assuming that this is how books were back then.
So many of the usual devices that you find in fantasy literature are present in most of the books you will read. The central object in question in this book, the well at the world's end, is a well whose waters provide a sort of immortality. The theme of immortality has been dealt with so many times in fantasy literature; and this is quite interesting. It is one of humankind's primary goals to live forever. (If you're interested in a more realistic treatment of this idea, read The Denial of Death - it's fantastic and I should re-read it soon) So yes, coming back to this book, Ralph of Upmeads wishes to go a-questing and after hearing of it from many people, decides that his quest will be to drink from the well at the world's end. What I liked about this was that he chose it just out of spirit of adventure (partially, at least - if I told you why exactly he does it, it would be a spoiler).
The geographical area covered in this book is tiny. Really tiny. Major towns are only thirty miles apart and can be traveled between on horseback in a day or so. This is something I've noticed quite often in fantasy books - the distances are automatically constrained by the fact that horseback is the primary mode of transport.
There are other things that are similar in other fantasy books - the presence of a sage who is wise and acts as a guide. Haven't we seen so many of these? There's another similarity with _The Lord of the Rings_, but I think I will not write it here because it'll be a spoiler, again?
I am not criticising the book because of these things, nor am I criticising the genre of fantasy. Some things need to stay the same so that readers are comfortable looking at other things changing. I, for one, enjoy horses and swords and knights. Attempting to make sense of immortality is a good thing; and I enjoy looking at how various authors think about it.
This book does not have much in terms of worldbuilding. The setting seems to be in Britain near the coast, and the "world's end" where the well is at is just the sea. That's fine. I enjoyed reading the adventures, and the interplay of the characters was nice. There was a deliberate placing of people in places and Morris had good control over the plot, although it did get a little draggy towards the end.
I was coming into this book slightly expecting the characters to fall flat in terms of depth and complexity. And after reading the first hundred or so pages, I felt like this was going to be the case. However, it wasn't to be - the characters were complex, there is romance, kingship, lordship, thralldom and more in this book. They are all treated well, and looked at from various angles. Except the romance, perhaps. Haha.
Characters are quite decisive, and we don't get to see too much of any soul-searching happening. Truly, it is a happening world and it seems like someone told everyone : "get down and do your job". There isn't too much scheming or soliloquiy. I would have liked that.
But overall, I enjoyed the book and even finished it as it ran past five hundred pages. It was instructive to read and see how William Morris inspired an entire generation, or cohort, of writers to adopt certain aspects and mannerisms in their own fantasy writing. For a trailblazer (arguably), this is a very good book and holds its own.
September 10, 2023
I wouldn't argue with people who deem this book boring. It is not a page-turner by any stretch of the imagination. And the episodic structure of these adventures doesn't help to establish strong narrative throughline. But I spent a lot of time with this book, while reading one or two chapters every day for a few mouths, and noticed a peculiar thing: I still remember most of the events and plot developments with surprising clarity and in great detail. William Morris knows how to hold reader's attention and how to leave a long-lasting impression.
My native tongue is Russian. Listening to English, speaking English, reading English - it always feels like a game to me. Even after many years of studying. Any foreign language, no matter how familiar, holds some inexplicable mystery. This magical feeling has never been more pronounced to me than during my time with this book.
The Well at the World’s End shouldn’t be described as an example of Style over Substance. Because in this particular case Style is Substance. Style permeates the very fabric of the narrative and transforms this huge and overlong book about trivial adventures into the thriving, magnificent imaginary reality.
William Morris considered his fantasies a revival of the medieval tradition of chivalrous romances, and was accordingly willing to use archaic-sounding language. However, in editor and critic Lin Carter's estimation, "Morris' imitation of medieval prose was not overdone: clarity and simplicity and a certain haunting and lyrical music makes it very readable." Once you get used to it, I dare add.
“My friend, doth aught ail me with thee? Wilt thou not tell me, so that I may amend it? For thou are grown of few words with me and turnest thee from me, and seemest as if thou heedest me little. Thou art as a fair spring morning gone cold and overcast in the afternoon. What is it then?”
After a fifty or so pages you’ll get used to this kind of language. And after another hundred pages many peculiar words will seep into your daily vocabulary.
On the pages of this book Morris created an interesting imaginary world - Pseudo-British Middle Ages existing in the vacuum of magical realism. A feudal heaven of endless wars and adventures. A colorful patchwork of kingdoms, earldoms and city-states. Roads are crawling with strong-thieves. Chapmen travel with their own war-parties. Franklins and serfs spend their days in constant fear of conflicts and onslaughts. Knights errant live like pigs in clover. They can wander the land to their hearts content. At every turn there are adventures ripe for the picking. Whether you want to prove your chivalric virtues in pas d'armes or in pursuit of courtly love, you wouldn't have to search for long.
“The knight-errant is a character that has broken away from the world of his origin, in order to go off on his own to right wrongs or to test and assert his own chivalric ideals. He is motivated by idealism and goals that are often illusory”.
This description perfectly sums up the nature of this book’s main character Ralph of the Upmeads – the youngest son of some backwater king, who rules the microscopic kingdom you wouldn’t be able to find on the map.
Ralph is not by any means an unlikable person. But he is incredibly simpleminded creature. Не seemingly have nothing in his head besides very vague ideas about knightly adventures and adorably straightforward sex drive. He wants to perform heroic quest and he wants to get himself a beautiful lady to love unconditionally for the rest of his life or at least for now. You have to understand, that for so young a person Forever and Now is practically the same thing.
I should point out that the main characters of this book shouldn't have any particular personalities, for they are examples of purity, integrity and other great virtues. Their inner beauty is mirrored by their perfect outward appearances. They are not good people because they look good. It is the other way around. One could argue that two things shouldn't be logically linked at all, but we are not talking about real life here. It is a High Fantasy novel made in the image and semblance of chivalric romances of old.
Moreover our wonderful Ralph is stripped of almost any agency and shows initiative only once in a hundred pages. Usually when there is a lady to be wooed. After a few days of his journey he impulsively performs one heroic deed of a dubious nature. And that is it. Afterwards a lot of people are willing to take him under their wing. And throughout the whole book somebody always guiding him. People literally hand him from one person to another. It is as if they are running a relay race towards the finish line, and Ralph is nothing more than a batoon that team-members have to hold. Sometimes this continuity cuts off for a few pages. Finally Ralph stands alone and is free to choose his own path. But after a few miles/hours he stumbles upon the next guide and readily puts himself into their care.
The book is divided by its author into 4 parts roughly equal in size. First part tells a story about young and therefore foolish knight wondering the world without any knowledge or wisdom or purpose. The second part gives him the quest of his life and put his resolve to the test. The third part bring his quest to the glorious fulfillment. And the forth part brings him home as a changed man.
Sometimes It feels like every character that we meet in the book is involved into events more interesting than Ralph’s quest. Brave warriors overthrow horrible tyrants, merry outlaws fight against the imposing city-state of slave-owners, merchants make fortunes with sly business transactions. There is a lion running loose in the city for crying out loud! But main character steps away from all of this, because before anything else he has to find THE WELL AT THE WORLD’S END and drink from it.
So, what all the fuss is about? Is the Well worth the effort? Yes. Does William Morris oversells it? No. The Well is a thing of beauty. It possesses the pathos and splendor and inexplicable otherworldliness of a genuine symbol of the divine grace. It mesmerizes, it awes, it fills the reader's heart with soothing inhuman tranquility and longing for a peaceful reassurance.
The Well restores health and lift the burden of years from any person's shoulders, it quenches the sorrows and invigorates the mind. In short, it is overcharged version of the Holy Grail that any man can find if they try hard enough. But you can ask: why would a young lad, who can barely be called a man, is seeking the Well? It looks like he is doing it because he cannot imagine anything more knightly than this. The Well is the ultimate quest, and Ralph wouldn't settle for less. I doubt that he has the brain-capacity for the spiritual journey. He is almost instinctively drawn towards this place. But at the end of the day Ralph becomes the better version of himself, and honestly, what else can a man want? This is a goal all of us can and should strive for.
It is fairly obvious that The Well at the World’s End follows the narrative template of the Hero’s Journey with utmost diligence. Call to Adventure, Supernatural aid. Several thresholds to overstep. Mentors and helpers. Challenges and temptations. Transformation and rebirth. Especially interesting and very commendable is the keen attention that Morris pays to the last stage of the Journey – The Return.
William Morris organizes the return of his hero in a best way possible. It is very dramatic, interesting and uplifting. And most importantly it is absolutely necessary. Grail doesn't worth much if after holding it in your hands you can't return to the world and put these hands of yours to a good use.
No matter how difficult the quest for the Grail/The Well may be there are conflicts more painful and pressing in the real world. And because of it the last part of the book is the most powerful and convincing. By searching for the Well our characters undergone the ritual of the initiation. Afterwards they return to the world which is riddled with problems, fears and uncertainties. Relationships between the characters become flashed out and more nuanced, and their Love becomes a real thing, not made of flowers and butterflies, but of mutual respect and commitment.
Don't worry. Eventually every seemingly random storyline will come to a close and contribute to the endgame of William Morris.
" - Now is come the very ending of our journey that we so often longed for.
- But they were happy days - the days of our journey; and tomorrow begins a new life."
My native tongue is Russian. Listening to English, speaking English, reading English - it always feels like a game to me. Even after many years of studying. Any foreign language, no matter how familiar, holds some inexplicable mystery. This magical feeling has never been more pronounced to me than during my time with this book.
The Well at the World’s End shouldn’t be described as an example of Style over Substance. Because in this particular case Style is Substance. Style permeates the very fabric of the narrative and transforms this huge and overlong book about trivial adventures into the thriving, magnificent imaginary reality.
William Morris considered his fantasies a revival of the medieval tradition of chivalrous romances, and was accordingly willing to use archaic-sounding language. However, in editor and critic Lin Carter's estimation, "Morris' imitation of medieval prose was not overdone: clarity and simplicity and a certain haunting and lyrical music makes it very readable." Once you get used to it, I dare add.
“My friend, doth aught ail me with thee? Wilt thou not tell me, so that I may amend it? For thou are grown of few words with me and turnest thee from me, and seemest as if thou heedest me little. Thou art as a fair spring morning gone cold and overcast in the afternoon. What is it then?”
After a fifty or so pages you’ll get used to this kind of language. And after another hundred pages many peculiar words will seep into your daily vocabulary.
On the pages of this book Morris created an interesting imaginary world - Pseudo-British Middle Ages existing in the vacuum of magical realism. A feudal heaven of endless wars and adventures. A colorful patchwork of kingdoms, earldoms and city-states. Roads are crawling with strong-thieves. Chapmen travel with their own war-parties. Franklins and serfs spend their days in constant fear of conflicts and onslaughts. Knights errant live like pigs in clover. They can wander the land to their hearts content. At every turn there are adventures ripe for the picking. Whether you want to prove your chivalric virtues in pas d'armes or in pursuit of courtly love, you wouldn't have to search for long.
“The knight-errant is a character that has broken away from the world of his origin, in order to go off on his own to right wrongs or to test and assert his own chivalric ideals. He is motivated by idealism and goals that are often illusory”.
This description perfectly sums up the nature of this book’s main character Ralph of the Upmeads – the youngest son of some backwater king, who rules the microscopic kingdom you wouldn’t be able to find on the map.
Ralph is not by any means an unlikable person. But he is incredibly simpleminded creature. Не seemingly have nothing in his head besides very vague ideas about knightly adventures and adorably straightforward sex drive. He wants to perform heroic quest and he wants to get himself a beautiful lady to love unconditionally for the rest of his life or at least for now. You have to understand, that for so young a person Forever and Now is practically the same thing.
I should point out that the main characters of this book shouldn't have any particular personalities, for they are examples of purity, integrity and other great virtues. Their inner beauty is mirrored by their perfect outward appearances. They are not good people because they look good. It is the other way around. One could argue that two things shouldn't be logically linked at all, but we are not talking about real life here. It is a High Fantasy novel made in the image and semblance of chivalric romances of old.
Moreover our wonderful Ralph is stripped of almost any agency and shows initiative only once in a hundred pages. Usually when there is a lady to be wooed. After a few days of his journey he impulsively performs one heroic deed of a dubious nature. And that is it. Afterwards a lot of people are willing to take him under their wing. And throughout the whole book somebody always guiding him. People literally hand him from one person to another. It is as if they are running a relay race towards the finish line, and Ralph is nothing more than a batoon that team-members have to hold. Sometimes this continuity cuts off for a few pages. Finally Ralph stands alone and is free to choose his own path. But after a few miles/hours he stumbles upon the next guide and readily puts himself into their care.
The book is divided by its author into 4 parts roughly equal in size. First part tells a story about young and therefore foolish knight wondering the world without any knowledge or wisdom or purpose. The second part gives him the quest of his life and put his resolve to the test. The third part bring his quest to the glorious fulfillment. And the forth part brings him home as a changed man.
Sometimes It feels like every character that we meet in the book is involved into events more interesting than Ralph’s quest. Brave warriors overthrow horrible tyrants, merry outlaws fight against the imposing city-state of slave-owners, merchants make fortunes with sly business transactions. There is a lion running loose in the city for crying out loud! But main character steps away from all of this, because before anything else he has to find THE WELL AT THE WORLD’S END and drink from it.
So, what all the fuss is about? Is the Well worth the effort? Yes. Does William Morris oversells it? No. The Well is a thing of beauty. It possesses the pathos and splendor and inexplicable otherworldliness of a genuine symbol of the divine grace. It mesmerizes, it awes, it fills the reader's heart with soothing inhuman tranquility and longing for a peaceful reassurance.
The Well restores health and lift the burden of years from any person's shoulders, it quenches the sorrows and invigorates the mind. In short, it is overcharged version of the Holy Grail that any man can find if they try hard enough. But you can ask: why would a young lad, who can barely be called a man, is seeking the Well? It looks like he is doing it because he cannot imagine anything more knightly than this. The Well is the ultimate quest, and Ralph wouldn't settle for less. I doubt that he has the brain-capacity for the spiritual journey. He is almost instinctively drawn towards this place. But at the end of the day Ralph becomes the better version of himself, and honestly, what else can a man want? This is a goal all of us can and should strive for.
It is fairly obvious that The Well at the World’s End follows the narrative template of the Hero’s Journey with utmost diligence. Call to Adventure, Supernatural aid. Several thresholds to overstep. Mentors and helpers. Challenges and temptations. Transformation and rebirth. Especially interesting and very commendable is the keen attention that Morris pays to the last stage of the Journey – The Return.
William Morris organizes the return of his hero in a best way possible. It is very dramatic, interesting and uplifting. And most importantly it is absolutely necessary. Grail doesn't worth much if after holding it in your hands you can't return to the world and put these hands of yours to a good use.
No matter how difficult the quest for the Grail/The Well may be there are conflicts more painful and pressing in the real world. And because of it the last part of the book is the most powerful and convincing. By searching for the Well our characters undergone the ritual of the initiation. Afterwards they return to the world which is riddled with problems, fears and uncertainties. Relationships between the characters become flashed out and more nuanced, and their Love becomes a real thing, not made of flowers and butterflies, but of mutual respect and commitment.
Don't worry. Eventually every seemingly random storyline will come to a close and contribute to the endgame of William Morris.
" - Now is come the very ending of our journey that we so often longed for.
- But they were happy days - the days of our journey; and tomorrow begins a new life."
March 25, 2020
Lisez William Morris c'est merveilleux <3
March 4, 2015
Lectura imprescindible para todo aquel que desee adentrarse en la historia del género de fantasía, y sin embargo es un libro muy difícil de recomendar. Estamos ante una obra muy larga, en la que suceden muchas cosas, hay muchos personajes y encima está deliberadamente escrita en un inglés anticuado de inspiración medieval que en muchas ocasiones dificulta su lectura e impide que se avance muy rápido. Aún así, no es de extrañar que sea una de las obras más importantes de la fantasía pre-Tolkien, ya que la historia tiene elementos innovadores para su época, entre los cuales se cuenta un tratamiento de los personajes femeninos poco común para 1896. Hoy en día la novela sobrevive, al igual que muchas otras obras fantásticas de su época, por ser una de las principales inspiraciones de autores como Tolkien o C.S. Lewis; el propio Tolkien afirmó en una ocasión que su mayor deseo era escribir una novela como esta, y se nota porque hay muchas semejanzas en cuanto al estilo, tema y estructuras, a pesar de que William Morris opta por crear un mundo fantástico más cercano a un medioevo de cartón piedra e inspiración cristiana y no parece estar tan interesado en construir una mitología propia. Pero en lo que sí se parece es en su recreación del viaje del héroe y la sugerencia de un mundo mágico y primitivo del que solo se intuyen fragmentos muy difusos. En definitiva, es un gran libro y todo amante de la fantasía heroica debe leerlo algún día, aunque nuevamente hay que advertir que no es una lectura fácil. Hasta donde yo sé, no existe traducción al castellano, pero su condición de obra de dominio público hace que una edición digital en inglés sea muy fácil de conseguir.
April 24, 2023
Regrettably calling it quits with this one (I haven't been reading it *that* long, I took breaks after each separate book/part) even though I'm nearly 80% of the way through. Whilst Morris's style may seem captivating at first I've struggled with the lack of narrative eventfulness, which hurts all the more because the characters are simply heroic archetype "good and noble" etc because that's what we are told they are. Most chapters consist of "they rode through a plain, or a forest and then spake to one another and said "we are getting closer to the well" and then they settled for the night" or perhaps "they met a man on the road and he said "are you looking for the well?" and then they ask the man's history" and he says "I came from Utterbol and there is an evil lorde/sorceress there and I will tell you about my journeys in Utterbol and how I met the evil Lord" etc etc etc (if the characters ever meet the lord or witch they generally just sit down for a cup of tea and then relate to each other that a) they are looking for the Well and b) what they did last week, which was look for the well and have tea with someone else.
ETCETERA
I persisted into the later chapters because I liked The Wood Beyond the World a lot, but Morris seems to have stripped back any allegorical pretense here, lengthened the story and provided no causation. I'm genuinely lost in this book and I genuinely don't want to know where it goes anymore. The real sucker punch is that they do find the well in book three, they drink from the well in book 3 and NOTHING HAPPENS. Literally a few characters comment "oh you look full of vigour" and that's it. THAT. IS. IT.
ETCETERA
I persisted into the later chapters because I liked The Wood Beyond the World a lot, but Morris seems to have stripped back any allegorical pretense here, lengthened the story and provided no causation. I'm genuinely lost in this book and I genuinely don't want to know where it goes anymore. The real sucker punch is that they do find the well in book three, they drink from the well in book 3 and NOTHING HAPPENS. Literally a few characters comment "oh you look full of vigour" and that's it. THAT. IS. IT.
December 15, 2017
the hero, Ralph, is practically invincible through half the story, and then the other half of the story he’s invincible AND immortal. but you gotta appreciate how consistently meloncholy the whole damn thing is.
sucks that there’s no monsters tho :/
sucks that there’s no monsters tho :/
April 15, 2012
I think I'll try his narrative poems instead. I've nothing against slow and old-fashioned - on the contary, I came for that - but didn't have much oomph.
December 31, 2013
Fantastic adventure with great characterization and best of all a female character with character. Yay! I can see why this book inspired so many subsequent fantasy novels.
May 20, 2023
I love William Morris so much. Tolkien before Tolkien, with actual badass women whose actions and motivations make sense. <3
March 11, 2018
The usual SPOILER ALERT stands here. I go into detail about many of the key elements of the plot, so please be forewarned!
To say that William Morris is a gifted spinner of yarns would be a massive understatement, as would it be to say that said yarns have been profoundly influential. Even were it not for the fact that both CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien were avowed fans of the well-spoken wordsmith of Walthamstow, a perlustration of a novel like The Well at the World’s End would yield a wealth of witness to that very fact. At the same time, though, the Well with all its rough edges has as much of a kinship resemblance to the works of Robert E Howard (on whose ‘low fantasy’ sword-and-sorcery novels Morris apparently left as indelible a mark) as to the ‘high fantasy’ epics of his better-hoofed Inkling fans.
The Well at the World’s End is the tale of Ralph, the youngest son of the King and Queen of Upmeads, as he escapes from home and undertakes a perilous and nigh-impossible journey to the eponymous Well – a single draught from which is rumoured to improve one’s health, regenerate one’s beauty, lengthen one’s life severalfold and cast a certain luck and grace over one’s endeavours. As he sets off from home, he is given a set of beads by his godmother Katherine, which mark him as a quester for the Well. Ralph being a doughty and rather selfless lad, he gives his help to poor and imperilled people that he meets, and so makes a number of friends and well-wishers, and a few powerful enemies. The novel sprawls with a wealth of detail about the landscapes and societies that Ralph must traverse: the Perilous Wood, the Burg of Four Friths, the Land of Abundance, the Cheaping Knowe, the Uttermost Lands, the Dry Tree and the abode of the Sorceress that stands on the road to the Well.
Ralph starts out his quest with very little guidance and even less clue of what he’s doing, and he’s primarily guided by his emotions of sympathy and affection. He learns very early on that not everyone he meets is to be trusted or has his best interests at heart. He encounters, and either falls in love with or is seduced by, the beautiful and beguiling Lady of Abundance, who is never given a proper name in the entirety of the story, and who remains something of an enigma throughout. The accounts of the Lady of Abundance given by the people she rules, by her enemies and even by herself are contradictory and irreconcilable, and two distinct images of her emerge. Is she one of the ‘fey’, an amoral temptress who bewitches men and drives them to madness before leaving them? Is she merely, as she herself claims and as Ralph believes to the end, a simple girl who led an eventful life, whose preternatural beauty and other gifts all come from the Well (from which she drank)? It’s a testament to Morris’s storytelling ability that not only is that question left unresolved, but both interpretations of the Lady of Abundance make sense given what we’re told. Ralph saves her life on one occasion, and she later returns the favour after he is captured by the Knight of the Sun, her estranged husband who murders her in a jealous rage.
It’s really only after the Lady of Abundance is murdered that Ralph, driven by a mixture of grief and resolve, begins his pursuit of the Well in earnest – a sign of Ralph’s budding maturation as a character. He happens upon one of his brothers, whose valet is an old friend to the House of Upmeads and who directs Ralph on a road that leads through Cheaping Knowe to Utterbol, near which lives one of the men of his old hometown of Swevenham – who was said to have sought the Well some forty years back. Following these leads, and also the memory of a peasant girl he met at Bourton Abbas, and fancied early on in his quest, he sets off for Utterbol.
It’s here that the parallels with Howard’s novels become more obvious. The villains that Ralph faces are not powerful Dark Lords, dragons, necromancers or supernatural demons. They are men, and their evil is also very human. Ralph’s primary enemies are the quasi-Spartan warrior-citizens of the Burg of Four Friths, the slavers of Cheaping Knowe, and the lord of Utterbol. Ralph falls foul of the last, a debauched petty tyrant who takes pleasure in the torture, mutilation, castration and rape of his victims. Ralph learns of the yeoman girl he’d been seeking that she was taken captive by wild men and led by one of them, Bull Nosy, to be sold as a slave at Cheaping Knowe; however, she proved so unruly that Nosy decided to try his luck instead at Utterbol. He encountered the Lord of Utterbol on the road, who murdered him and took the yeoman girl as his own slave.
This yeoman girl, whom Ralph later learns is named Ursula, is in some ways the most admirable character in the novel. She is not blessed with Ralph’s extraordinary good luck (though they share identical tokens from Well-seekers, we learn later that Ursula didn’t get the effect of it because it had to be given by an admirer of the opposite sex), but sets off in pursuit of the Well on her own initiative and her own power. In the face of all the same dangers that beset Ralph, she proves herself to be resourceful, level-headed, understanding and kind. She falls in love with Ralph early on, but only dares to show it after he saves her from attack by a bear. But far from being a helpless damsel, she then goes on to save Ralph’s life multiple times and takes something of the more active rôle in leading him to the Sage of Swevenham, and from there to the Well.
After they have found the Well, they begin the journey back home. Quite typically of the fantasy novels to follow, and particularly those of Tolkien, Ralph sets out from home full of youthful impetuosity, longing for adventure and love and fame. But once he’s achieved his goals, having suffered loss and hardship and becoming somewhat more sure of himself, he finds that all he really desires is to see his beloved parents again, to love and serve them and his people of Upmeads. The road he sets out on ends at the same place he started, and Morris beautifully arranges the structured chiasmus to the entire story, as carefully as if it were one of his intricate floral-geometric wallpaper patterns. That’s something that Tolkien clearly strove for in his own writing.
As the two lovers and Well-friends approach Upmeads, they find that the world they traversed in their quest has changed – sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. The tyrant of Utterbol has been overthrown and replaced by the avenging brother of Bull Nosy, Bull Shockhead, whom Ralph had befriended on the road there – though Shockhead has plans to undo and make amends for Utterbol’s prior tyranny. The queen of Goldburg, having pined sorely after Ralph, abdicated her throne to her kinsmen. The champions of the Dry Tree, having suffered the death of their Lady, led a slave revolt against the Burg of Four Friths, and the former denizens thereof – bereft of their home by their former slaves – went on a rampage, killing and sacking towns and villages in the direction of Upmeads, driving Ralph’s parents and people out of their homes. The climactic confrontation is between Ralph, with the friends he’s made in his quest at his side, and the marauding former Burgers. If you’re noticing parallels with the Scouring of the Shire here, gentle reader, rest assured – you aren’t the only one!
Morris’s class politics make themselves felt more strongly here than in The Wood Beyond the World. It’s telling that the single most heroic character in the book, Ursula of Bourton Abbas, is a peasant and former slave, a woman used to working with her hands and arms and legs in the fields. The representatives of the ‘nobility’ are much more of a mixed bag: Ralph, obviously, has all the marks of a hero, but he is somewhat susceptible to being misled both by his naïveté and by his hormones; on the other hand, the Lord of Utterbol practically embodies the libido dominandi of the worst elements of his class. And the Lady of Abundance is so elusive and enigmatic herself as to embody Morris’s own ambiguous relationship to the elder ruling class. And lastly, the bourgeoisie: though there are examples of honourable and good members of the middle class (most notably Clement Chapman and his wife Katherine), the people of Cheaping Knowe and the Burg of Four Friths are generally portrayed as narrow, bigoted and unfeeling scoundrels, and their ‘capitalist’ exploitation of the poor is often portrayed as equally bad if not worse than that under the feudal kingdoms.
This sprawling fantasy epic, though overshadowed by the better-known novels that it inspired, is very much worth reading and enjoying in its own right. As with The Wood Beyond the World, Morris’s deliberately-antiquarian language can be a bit daunting at first, but once one gets used to it the artistry of his word choice and phrasing itself can be a source of reading pleasure.
To say that William Morris is a gifted spinner of yarns would be a massive understatement, as would it be to say that said yarns have been profoundly influential. Even were it not for the fact that both CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien were avowed fans of the well-spoken wordsmith of Walthamstow, a perlustration of a novel like The Well at the World’s End would yield a wealth of witness to that very fact. At the same time, though, the Well with all its rough edges has as much of a kinship resemblance to the works of Robert E Howard (on whose ‘low fantasy’ sword-and-sorcery novels Morris apparently left as indelible a mark) as to the ‘high fantasy’ epics of his better-hoofed Inkling fans.
The Well at the World’s End is the tale of Ralph, the youngest son of the King and Queen of Upmeads, as he escapes from home and undertakes a perilous and nigh-impossible journey to the eponymous Well – a single draught from which is rumoured to improve one’s health, regenerate one’s beauty, lengthen one’s life severalfold and cast a certain luck and grace over one’s endeavours. As he sets off from home, he is given a set of beads by his godmother Katherine, which mark him as a quester for the Well. Ralph being a doughty and rather selfless lad, he gives his help to poor and imperilled people that he meets, and so makes a number of friends and well-wishers, and a few powerful enemies. The novel sprawls with a wealth of detail about the landscapes and societies that Ralph must traverse: the Perilous Wood, the Burg of Four Friths, the Land of Abundance, the Cheaping Knowe, the Uttermost Lands, the Dry Tree and the abode of the Sorceress that stands on the road to the Well.
Ralph starts out his quest with very little guidance and even less clue of what he’s doing, and he’s primarily guided by his emotions of sympathy and affection. He learns very early on that not everyone he meets is to be trusted or has his best interests at heart. He encounters, and either falls in love with or is seduced by, the beautiful and beguiling Lady of Abundance, who is never given a proper name in the entirety of the story, and who remains something of an enigma throughout. The accounts of the Lady of Abundance given by the people she rules, by her enemies and even by herself are contradictory and irreconcilable, and two distinct images of her emerge. Is she one of the ‘fey’, an amoral temptress who bewitches men and drives them to madness before leaving them? Is she merely, as she herself claims and as Ralph believes to the end, a simple girl who led an eventful life, whose preternatural beauty and other gifts all come from the Well (from which she drank)? It’s a testament to Morris’s storytelling ability that not only is that question left unresolved, but both interpretations of the Lady of Abundance make sense given what we’re told. Ralph saves her life on one occasion, and she later returns the favour after he is captured by the Knight of the Sun, her estranged husband who murders her in a jealous rage.
It’s really only after the Lady of Abundance is murdered that Ralph, driven by a mixture of grief and resolve, begins his pursuit of the Well in earnest – a sign of Ralph’s budding maturation as a character. He happens upon one of his brothers, whose valet is an old friend to the House of Upmeads and who directs Ralph on a road that leads through Cheaping Knowe to Utterbol, near which lives one of the men of his old hometown of Swevenham – who was said to have sought the Well some forty years back. Following these leads, and also the memory of a peasant girl he met at Bourton Abbas, and fancied early on in his quest, he sets off for Utterbol.
It’s here that the parallels with Howard’s novels become more obvious. The villains that Ralph faces are not powerful Dark Lords, dragons, necromancers or supernatural demons. They are men, and their evil is also very human. Ralph’s primary enemies are the quasi-Spartan warrior-citizens of the Burg of Four Friths, the slavers of Cheaping Knowe, and the lord of Utterbol. Ralph falls foul of the last, a debauched petty tyrant who takes pleasure in the torture, mutilation, castration and rape of his victims. Ralph learns of the yeoman girl he’d been seeking that she was taken captive by wild men and led by one of them, Bull Nosy, to be sold as a slave at Cheaping Knowe; however, she proved so unruly that Nosy decided to try his luck instead at Utterbol. He encountered the Lord of Utterbol on the road, who murdered him and took the yeoman girl as his own slave.
This yeoman girl, whom Ralph later learns is named Ursula, is in some ways the most admirable character in the novel. She is not blessed with Ralph’s extraordinary good luck (though they share identical tokens from Well-seekers, we learn later that Ursula didn’t get the effect of it because it had to be given by an admirer of the opposite sex), but sets off in pursuit of the Well on her own initiative and her own power. In the face of all the same dangers that beset Ralph, she proves herself to be resourceful, level-headed, understanding and kind. She falls in love with Ralph early on, but only dares to show it after he saves her from attack by a bear. But far from being a helpless damsel, she then goes on to save Ralph’s life multiple times and takes something of the more active rôle in leading him to the Sage of Swevenham, and from there to the Well.
After they have found the Well, they begin the journey back home. Quite typically of the fantasy novels to follow, and particularly those of Tolkien, Ralph sets out from home full of youthful impetuosity, longing for adventure and love and fame. But once he’s achieved his goals, having suffered loss and hardship and becoming somewhat more sure of himself, he finds that all he really desires is to see his beloved parents again, to love and serve them and his people of Upmeads. The road he sets out on ends at the same place he started, and Morris beautifully arranges the structured chiasmus to the entire story, as carefully as if it were one of his intricate floral-geometric wallpaper patterns. That’s something that Tolkien clearly strove for in his own writing.
As the two lovers and Well-friends approach Upmeads, they find that the world they traversed in their quest has changed – sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. The tyrant of Utterbol has been overthrown and replaced by the avenging brother of Bull Nosy, Bull Shockhead, whom Ralph had befriended on the road there – though Shockhead has plans to undo and make amends for Utterbol’s prior tyranny. The queen of Goldburg, having pined sorely after Ralph, abdicated her throne to her kinsmen. The champions of the Dry Tree, having suffered the death of their Lady, led a slave revolt against the Burg of Four Friths, and the former denizens thereof – bereft of their home by their former slaves – went on a rampage, killing and sacking towns and villages in the direction of Upmeads, driving Ralph’s parents and people out of their homes. The climactic confrontation is between Ralph, with the friends he’s made in his quest at his side, and the marauding former Burgers. If you’re noticing parallels with the Scouring of the Shire here, gentle reader, rest assured – you aren’t the only one!
Morris’s class politics make themselves felt more strongly here than in The Wood Beyond the World. It’s telling that the single most heroic character in the book, Ursula of Bourton Abbas, is a peasant and former slave, a woman used to working with her hands and arms and legs in the fields. The representatives of the ‘nobility’ are much more of a mixed bag: Ralph, obviously, has all the marks of a hero, but he is somewhat susceptible to being misled both by his naïveté and by his hormones; on the other hand, the Lord of Utterbol practically embodies the libido dominandi of the worst elements of his class. And the Lady of Abundance is so elusive and enigmatic herself as to embody Morris’s own ambiguous relationship to the elder ruling class. And lastly, the bourgeoisie: though there are examples of honourable and good members of the middle class (most notably Clement Chapman and his wife Katherine), the people of Cheaping Knowe and the Burg of Four Friths are generally portrayed as narrow, bigoted and unfeeling scoundrels, and their ‘capitalist’ exploitation of the poor is often portrayed as equally bad if not worse than that under the feudal kingdoms.
This sprawling fantasy epic, though overshadowed by the better-known novels that it inspired, is very much worth reading and enjoying in its own right. As with The Wood Beyond the World, Morris’s deliberately-antiquarian language can be a bit daunting at first, but once one gets used to it the artistry of his word choice and phrasing itself can be a source of reading pleasure.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 6, 2023
So amazing! I wish it wasn’t over! Excited to read more of Morris :)
October 15, 2013
An absolutely charming Fantasy story by the man who invented Fantasy back in the 1880's and a great influence on Tolkien who said in one of his letters that he wished to write a long story on the lines of William Morris and that many passages from LOTR owe as much to Morris's work as they do to the Icelandic Saga's.
The Well at the Worlds End isn't Morris' first fantasy but is generally excepted as his best. He has this uncanny way of writing in the same ways that he paints or draws. Everything is totally full and twists and turns and weaves it's way forward in a misty environment of magic and mystery.
The Well at the Worlds End isn't Morris' first fantasy but is generally excepted as his best. He has this uncanny way of writing in the same ways that he paints or draws. Everything is totally full and twists and turns and weaves it's way forward in a misty environment of magic and mystery.
December 6, 2022
I didn't know how many times I would read the words, "meseemeth," "yeasaid," "naysay," "nigh," or "rede" when I started this book. The title is brilliant, and I was curious about how a man who became known for his textile designs also wrote fantasy fiction that was the childhood delight of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. His story-telling definitely has Tolkien vibes with its formality and high-fantasy feel. The overall plot is a good one, but he takes a long time to tell the story, and I definitely got lost in the knightly, romantic language at times. I'm glad I read it, but it was a commitment. It also reminded me somewhat of Don Quixote in its ideals and a knight seeking adventure.
November 1, 2021
One of my favourite books, I first read "The Well at the World's End" almost fifty years ago while in graduate school and have re-read it a number of time since (in my current re-reading I have almost reached the end of Book III, a wonderful part of the story where Ursula's strength of character truly shine through). I enjoy reading it slowly, a chapter or two at a time, and while reading it aloud would be best, reading it sub-vocally is still a good way to savour Morris' wonderful use of language.
June 20, 2016
Most interesting..
February 13, 2022
Lewis and Tolkien both mentioned The Well At The World’s End often when discussing their own reading, so it was added to my reading list long ago. It’s quite the saga and very difficult to find a copy of in my experience, so the only attempt I ever made in the past was cut short by the exhaustion of reading lengthy medieval literature on a computer screen. After a length of years, I came back to make a fresh start. I found a Librevox recording of all for books of the novel and though some of the recordings were lacking, the otherwise inaccessible novel was a great gift from those readers.
Well was a sort of revival of medieval style written around the Sherlock Holmes era. Morris employs a lot of arcane language and really gets the storytelling and all the elements just right to make this feel much older. Or at least to the extent that someone in my position can be deceived, his work does the trick. He goes into far deeper detail than most of the older works, but he develops his story and language in a convincing way.
Ralph is the youngest of four princes of Upmeads, a tiny kingdom of rolling green pastures and easy living. When he and his older brothers decide to go out to the four points of the compass and explore the world in search of adventures, he draws the short straw and is destined to stay home with his dotting parents. But that doesn’t stop our young fool-hearty hero. Before the dust from his brothers’ steeds can settle, Ralph steals away to the south in the only direction left to him. From here, he begins a journey of seemingly random encounters in lands which become stranger as he travels on toward the edge of the world.
Ralph Of Upmeads has two things going for him. He is incredibly lucky (everyone always says he has the look of luck about him) and incredibly handsome (every women looks longingly upon him). Luckily for Ralph, every venture he takes on is impossible unless you’re a man whom every woman falls in love with. So Ralph meets new people haphazardly and tries to understand their governments and to whom he should be friend and to whom foe. He experiences democracies and anarchy, bandits and slavery and all sorts of morally nebulous sorcery, sometimes having strong opinions and sometimes seemingly passive in what he is told and experiencing. While he comes in contact with all sorts of moral dilemmas, Ralph is no Galahad. He rarely shows a strong moral opinion that is not emotionally based. He says he is unfamiliar with thralldom (human trafficking and slavery) in his home lands, but only shows opinions about it when it involves himself or his friends. When it involves anyone he cares for, he always attempts to do the more chivalrous thing. He acquires a slave in battle and befriends the wild forest man to both of their advantages, eventually freeing him and assisting him on his way. Even so, his chivalry seems to be based solely on what effects himself, his friends, and his beloved.
Love and lust reign heavily in this story. Every woman is in love with Ralph and he falls for a few beauties, some enchanted with a beauty that makes all men war for lust over her. Ralph fights men who are killing their best friends over her jealously guarded glances. I had a hard time as a reader figuring out if she was going to be an evil character because all hell broke loose around her everywhere she went. The state of her admirers and those who fled from her reminded me of the effects of the one ring in LOTR. Even so, this elfin sorceress is apparently benign in her motives and of course, she falls head over heels in love with ol’ Ralph. The one eternally lusted after finally fell for the hot new boy. Even so, nothing comes out as planned.
Ralph goes away a lucky foolish beauty and comes home an enchanted future King with a magical bride at his side. In the middle, he falls in love, experiences loss, visits about 15 different kingdoms, travels to the edge of the world across barren lands, and comes back through all of it, helping here and there to clean things up a bit. As he nears home, he finds the kingdoms nearby in disarray and the fallout is upsetting things at Upmeads.
I was a bit surprised by the levels of sexual tension in this story. It really puts the modern romance novel into perspective when you read a classical romance like this one. It feels like a fertility myth where a youthful beauty finds he is destined to greatness because of his physical form. Finding the perfect match in feminine beauty, he reaches mythical status when he risks perils to gain the blessings of the well at the world’s end. Now he has hundreds of years of life ahead of him, a glowing countenance, and a dim foresight of future events. He and his bride have used their insane beauty to become all the more rich and powerful and love-lived and fertile.
The Well At The World’s End somehow manages to meld the worlds of Middleearth and Narnia with those of the soap opera and modern romance novels. And it does all of this in an epically long saga that feels haphazard and uneven, using language most people could not comprehend. I liked it well enough in most parts., but I doubt you would.
Well was a sort of revival of medieval style written around the Sherlock Holmes era. Morris employs a lot of arcane language and really gets the storytelling and all the elements just right to make this feel much older. Or at least to the extent that someone in my position can be deceived, his work does the trick. He goes into far deeper detail than most of the older works, but he develops his story and language in a convincing way.
Ralph is the youngest of four princes of Upmeads, a tiny kingdom of rolling green pastures and easy living. When he and his older brothers decide to go out to the four points of the compass and explore the world in search of adventures, he draws the short straw and is destined to stay home with his dotting parents. But that doesn’t stop our young fool-hearty hero. Before the dust from his brothers’ steeds can settle, Ralph steals away to the south in the only direction left to him. From here, he begins a journey of seemingly random encounters in lands which become stranger as he travels on toward the edge of the world.
Ralph Of Upmeads has two things going for him. He is incredibly lucky (everyone always says he has the look of luck about him) and incredibly handsome (every women looks longingly upon him). Luckily for Ralph, every venture he takes on is impossible unless you’re a man whom every woman falls in love with. So Ralph meets new people haphazardly and tries to understand their governments and to whom he should be friend and to whom foe. He experiences democracies and anarchy, bandits and slavery and all sorts of morally nebulous sorcery, sometimes having strong opinions and sometimes seemingly passive in what he is told and experiencing. While he comes in contact with all sorts of moral dilemmas, Ralph is no Galahad. He rarely shows a strong moral opinion that is not emotionally based. He says he is unfamiliar with thralldom (human trafficking and slavery) in his home lands, but only shows opinions about it when it involves himself or his friends. When it involves anyone he cares for, he always attempts to do the more chivalrous thing. He acquires a slave in battle and befriends the wild forest man to both of their advantages, eventually freeing him and assisting him on his way. Even so, his chivalry seems to be based solely on what effects himself, his friends, and his beloved.
Love and lust reign heavily in this story. Every woman is in love with Ralph and he falls for a few beauties, some enchanted with a beauty that makes all men war for lust over her. Ralph fights men who are killing their best friends over her jealously guarded glances. I had a hard time as a reader figuring out if she was going to be an evil character because all hell broke loose around her everywhere she went. The state of her admirers and those who fled from her reminded me of the effects of the one ring in LOTR. Even so, this elfin sorceress is apparently benign in her motives and of course, she falls head over heels in love with ol’ Ralph. The one eternally lusted after finally fell for the hot new boy. Even so, nothing comes out as planned.
Ralph goes away a lucky foolish beauty and comes home an enchanted future King with a magical bride at his side. In the middle, he falls in love, experiences loss, visits about 15 different kingdoms, travels to the edge of the world across barren lands, and comes back through all of it, helping here and there to clean things up a bit. As he nears home, he finds the kingdoms nearby in disarray and the fallout is upsetting things at Upmeads.
I was a bit surprised by the levels of sexual tension in this story. It really puts the modern romance novel into perspective when you read a classical romance like this one. It feels like a fertility myth where a youthful beauty finds he is destined to greatness because of his physical form. Finding the perfect match in feminine beauty, he reaches mythical status when he risks perils to gain the blessings of the well at the world’s end. Now he has hundreds of years of life ahead of him, a glowing countenance, and a dim foresight of future events. He and his bride have used their insane beauty to become all the more rich and powerful and love-lived and fertile.
The Well At The World’s End somehow manages to meld the worlds of Middleearth and Narnia with those of the soap opera and modern romance novels. And it does all of this in an epically long saga that feels haphazard and uneven, using language most people could not comprehend. I liked it well enough in most parts., but I doubt you would.
June 1, 2022
The best faux medieval epic I have ever read.
December 28, 2020
Whether it's music, literature, or film, the beginnings of genres are always murky. It's never exactly easy to say who "started" the surreal movement in painting or jazz in music - so it is with the fantasy genre. Stories of heroes going on fantastic quests facing monsters and demons go back ages. Are we, then, to say that Homer invented Fantasy with the Iliad and the Odyssey? Or was it that elusive individual who first penned Beowulf? And what about the medieval legends of King Arthur and the Round Table? Is that not Fantasy? In truth, the answer is almost always that no one person invents the genre or movement. But there is almost always someone who takes all the pieces that exist and forms them into something new that spawns a thousand others.
For fantasy, that person is William Morris.
William Morris is given this dubious honor because his books were the first (that we can find, at least) to take place entirely in invented worlds that, according to Lin Carter, have entirely escaped the wear and tear of ever having actually existed. Before Morris's works, fantasy was dreamlands like in "Phantastes" or "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" or heroic works set in far away corners of the world that may not actually exist, but are still supposed to be part of Earth.
"The Well at the World's End" is William Morris's best known story, and it was the obvious choice for my second book in the Year of Fantasy. It is one that I enjoyed very much and have very little in the way of criticism (as evidenced by my four star review). There is one major criticism I have; the rest are simply minor nitpicks. But we'll get to that.
First, the good. The world is very richly imagined in this book. Unlike worldbuilders today, Morris doesn't give us a name of the world or a map or five appendices. He simply says "once upon a time in the kingdom of Upmeads" and we're off. The nice thing about this is that the world unfolds before us exactly as it does for Ralph, our main character. We are discovering it just the same as he is and it is always mysterious. There's plenty of danger and excitement along the way, and lots of tyrants and Kings and armies. It's also a pretty good story, with a classic knight going on a quest with fair maidens and a magical object at the center. Morris was very consciously hearkening back to the medieval heroic tale (which is evident in the style and language he uses, so be warned). The women in this story are also not entirely powerless like in lots of old fantasy. There's still a bit of old world attitude towards female temperament and mind in there (and somehow every single woman is exceedingly fair), but the two main female characters in the story actually do helpful things.
As I said, I have mostly only minor nitpicks. The book indulges in my absolute least favorite old convention, the story within a story, wherein we'll get a break from the main plot so that some other character can take 5 or ten pages (or several chapters, at its worst) to tell us something else from their POV we probably don't need to know. The main character, Ralph, is also a bit too perfect for much of the story, for he has the dubious distinction of making every female he comes into contact with fall in love with him, even when they only met him five seconds ago, and there's never really any doubt he's going to succeed and be alright. But that's also par for the course with medieval romances, and since that's what Morris was aiming for I can let it slide.
And now, for the only major criticism I have of this book: it drags. It's 562 pages long, and though that's bathroom magazine material by today's fantasy standards, it could be much shorter. Like I said, the story within the story thing gets a bit much, it doesn't happen super often. Where it really starts to drag is around the last 150 pages or so. The ending of this book is very long and drawn out, and most of it feels completely unnecessary.
So, "The Well of the World's End" is a very great book. If you read it with a firm knowledge of where fantasy went in the 20th century, you can really get a grasp of how this book laid the path for everyone else to follow. Morris created his own world, and in doing so paved the way for Lord Dunsany, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Tad Williams, Brandon Sanderson, and every child who's ever drawn a map of a place that doesn't exist - including me.
So thanks, Mr. Morris. You've done well. If only you could see where the fantasy genre has gone.
For fantasy, that person is William Morris.
William Morris is given this dubious honor because his books were the first (that we can find, at least) to take place entirely in invented worlds that, according to Lin Carter, have entirely escaped the wear and tear of ever having actually existed. Before Morris's works, fantasy was dreamlands like in "Phantastes" or "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" or heroic works set in far away corners of the world that may not actually exist, but are still supposed to be part of Earth.
"The Well at the World's End" is William Morris's best known story, and it was the obvious choice for my second book in the Year of Fantasy. It is one that I enjoyed very much and have very little in the way of criticism (as evidenced by my four star review). There is one major criticism I have; the rest are simply minor nitpicks. But we'll get to that.
First, the good. The world is very richly imagined in this book. Unlike worldbuilders today, Morris doesn't give us a name of the world or a map or five appendices. He simply says "once upon a time in the kingdom of Upmeads" and we're off. The nice thing about this is that the world unfolds before us exactly as it does for Ralph, our main character. We are discovering it just the same as he is and it is always mysterious. There's plenty of danger and excitement along the way, and lots of tyrants and Kings and armies. It's also a pretty good story, with a classic knight going on a quest with fair maidens and a magical object at the center. Morris was very consciously hearkening back to the medieval heroic tale (which is evident in the style and language he uses, so be warned). The women in this story are also not entirely powerless like in lots of old fantasy. There's still a bit of old world attitude towards female temperament and mind in there (and somehow every single woman is exceedingly fair), but the two main female characters in the story actually do helpful things.
As I said, I have mostly only minor nitpicks. The book indulges in my absolute least favorite old convention, the story within a story, wherein we'll get a break from the main plot so that some other character can take 5 or ten pages (or several chapters, at its worst) to tell us something else from their POV we probably don't need to know. The main character, Ralph, is also a bit too perfect for much of the story, for he has the dubious distinction of making every female he comes into contact with fall in love with him, even when they only met him five seconds ago, and there's never really any doubt he's going to succeed and be alright. But that's also par for the course with medieval romances, and since that's what Morris was aiming for I can let it slide.
And now, for the only major criticism I have of this book: it drags. It's 562 pages long, and though that's bathroom magazine material by today's fantasy standards, it could be much shorter. Like I said, the story within the story thing gets a bit much, it doesn't happen super often. Where it really starts to drag is around the last 150 pages or so. The ending of this book is very long and drawn out, and most of it feels completely unnecessary.
So, "The Well of the World's End" is a very great book. If you read it with a firm knowledge of where fantasy went in the 20th century, you can really get a grasp of how this book laid the path for everyone else to follow. Morris created his own world, and in doing so paved the way for Lord Dunsany, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Tad Williams, Brandon Sanderson, and every child who's ever drawn a map of a place that doesn't exist - including me.
So thanks, Mr. Morris. You've done well. If only you could see where the fantasy genre has gone.
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